Chapter 1: Fathers Dearest

Jim can still remember the first time he had asked Winona about his father, George Kirk. She was in the kitchen, washing the dishes. Her hands held a plate, fingers coated in soap bubbles, the tap running a steady jet of water. At the sound of his voice, she had stopped the scrubbing but, like always, refused to look at his five year old self. He could never understand why she refused to look at him and the few occasions that she did, she looked like she was about to cry.

"Where is papa?" His voice was still soft and innocent at that age, the question belying the confusion his as yet underdeveloped brain and inexperienced heart were unable to comprehend. He had always thought that being just the two of them, just Jim and Winona, was the most natural thing in the world - well Jim, Winona, and Sam that is. But the kids in his new class came with their moms and men who were introduced not as their uncle but as their father. They had asked his Uncle, who had brought him to school instead of his mother, if he was Jim's papa. His uncle had said no. So, with the innocence of their equally five year old selves had asked Jim the one question he couldn't answer: "Where is your papa?" Unable to answer he could only remain silent and shake his head. But the question had stuck.

It would not be Winona who would answer his question. After a few moments of silence and stillness, she had resumed her washing. And no matter how long he stood on the kitchen tiles with his bare feet and his space pajamas, she would not look his way or give any other acknowledgement that he or his question existed. Instead, he learned about his father from his teacher. She told him that George Kirk was now "far far away." That of course gave rise to many more questions that she was unable or refused to give any response to. Instead he saw pity in her eyes and a sad smile before she would usher him to go "play with his new friends."

It would be a year later that he would come to understand that his father was dead. That he had died to save his mother and him and so many others somewhere amongst the stars he sometimes gazed at in the night. It was then he understood that Winona wouldn't, couldn't, look at him, because he, more than his brother, was a living, walking, and talking reminder of the day she lost the man she loved. It didn't help that he looked uncannily like his father and that Sam, bless him, looked far more like their mother.

It also explained why his birthday was never one they celebrated. Why after a simple meal and when she thought neither of the kids could see, she would cry, her hacking sobs filtering through the not so thick walls of their Iowa farmhouse. The same day he found out the truth he discovered that he shared his day of birth with the day his father had left this world for the next. And who wouldn't cry about that?

So when Frank was first introduced as his new father, Jim wondered if that meant he would now have birthdays and that his mother wouldn't cry whenever she thought no one was looking. That someone would buy him ice cream and take him out to watch the cinema like the fathers of his classmates did for their kids. And amidst the smiles of his new step-dad, he wondered if life would get better. Oh how wrong he was.

While at first it seemed it had and Frank seemed to do a world of wonder to Winona who could now, finally, look her son in the eyes, it was short lived. Now that there was a paternal figure looking after her kids, she was free to pursue what, it appears, she had always wanted - to go back into space, the same space that had claimed her husband all those many years ago.

She would be gone months at a time and in those days and weeks where she was out somewhere in the black, Frank ceased to be the smiling father that he presented himself to be when she was around. He began to drink. Bourbon. Scotch. Vodka. Gin. Rum. Beer. The list was endless. He was more often drunk than sober. He preferred his bottles than taking care of the two boys who were left to fend for themselves. And when he did notice them, it was in the midst of punches and kicks aimed at bodies that were a long way from gaining enough muscle mass to resist.

When Winona came back from one or the other mission on those few and far in-between shore leaves, she never really saw Jim. And when Jim complained that Frank was beating them, she merely leveled him with a heavy gaze and dismissed it as the right of a man to discipline his kids when they were misbehaving. That Frank was just a strong man and that sometimes he didn't realize his own strength. And then she would be gone again and the same cycle of drinking and beatings would continue as if it was preordained in the heavens that this was the way the world worked.

So was it no surprise that Jim "did things." He learned to shoplift. He ran with the rough crowd, much older boys that liked to get into mischief. He fought, got cut lips and bruised knees. It was his way to escape the shit storm that was his home. It was a way to forget, even for a moment, that he had been handed a life that was by no means fair. As they say, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. And in the midst of being chased by police and irate shopkeepers, he could pretend the happy-go-luck, carefree smile he wore was true.

Of course, that only gave Frank more ammunition to escalate the beatings and to get away with it. But when he was already getting away with it, even without the excuse that Jim was doing something he shouldn't be, what was the point.

Eventually Sam, dearest brother of his, had had enough. He'd had enough of the beatings, enough of futile attempts to protect Jim from the monster. So he up and left. He left a note on Jim's bedside with only two words, "I'm sorry" and the next morning he was gone. Frank alerted the police, as would have been expected of any good father, that his eldest son had run away from home. But Jim highly doubted it was because of any filial attachment the man had. It was for appearances sake so that when Winona came back he could tell her he had done everything he could to find Sam but the lad had run with the wrong crowds, been one hell of a troublemaker never mind that it was actually Jim and not Sam that fit that picture.

And did Jim resent Sam for that? No. Sam was smart. He left when he could. Jim couldn't begrudge Sam that. If he had had any sense, he probably should have left sooner too. But with Sam gone, the noose around Jim tightened. He was hardly allowed to leave and was subjected to more and more of Frank's black moods. And every chance Frank got, he made Jim feel like the biggest failure this side of the galaxy.

So one fine July day, with the sun shining brightly above the corn fields, Jim stole Frank's car. It was an antique retrofitted with some of this century's latest gizmos. It was Frank's pride and joy. And, underage that he might have been, he drove it straight into the gorge, a few clicks north. That, of course, was the proverbial nail on the coffin. He earned Frank's undivided attention that night. That was when he learned that Frank sober was worse than Frank drunk. And black and bruised, he was shipped off to Tarsus IV so he could "learn to behave like a man and not some punk-ass kid who would never do anything with his life."

But life it seemed, regularly shat on Jim. Who would have thought that the chance to be separated from Iowa and the life he had lived would be the prelude to a nightmare.